The present advancements relate to a system, apparatus and associated methodology for updating contact information in mobile devices, such as cell phones, smart phones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Many mobile devices, such as cell phones, smart phones and PDAs, store contacts for quick access to phone numbers, postal addresses and even email addresses corresponding to people and/or business with which communication is frequently performed. Contact information may be organized within mobile devices by an address book, or other such application, according to a user-defined setting, such as alphabetically or based on predefined social, work and/or school groups.
Early mobile devices stored only text-based contact information, such as names, address, phone numbers and other such text-based information. However, modern mobile devices may also store multimedia information, including images, video and audio, as part of a contact. When receiving a call, a mobile device may display, for example, a picture of the caller that has been stored as part of the contact information corresponding to the incoming call. The mobile device may even play an audio clip corresponding to the contact as the ringtone for the incoming call.
However, for the mobile device to make use of contacts stored thereon, the contact information must be manually created and managed. This may involve manual entry of phone numbers, addresses, email addresses and multimedia content. Further, entry of multimedia content into a contact may require downloading the content from a camera or other source into a computer, formatting the content to be compatible with the mobile device, and downloading the content to the mobile device. Thus, creating new contacts or appending new information to existing contacts on a mobile device requires a high degree of interaction between the mobile device and its user, making the process tedious.
The contacts of a mobile device may be synchronized with contacts stored on a computer or other device. During synchronization, the mobile device exchanges contact information with, for example, a computer, such that both the mobile device and the computer have the same contact information. Synchronization allows for contact entry on a computer, which has a larger keyboard better suited to data entry, but still requires manual entry of all data and any updates or additions thereto.
Recently, social networking sites establishing new ways of communication have emerged on the Internet. Users of these social networking sites may exchange emails, photographs, video, instant messages, and the like. Each user of the social networking site may also identify other users as “friends” with which to communicate and share information, provided the other users consent to the “friendship.” Once established, friendships allow users access to each other's profile information, which may include multimedia content, such as images, audio and video, as well as messages posted by friends to others or to groups.
Further, when a user first joins a social networking site, the user may fill out a profile including personal information. Such profiles are then used by other users to determine whether they share interests, location, or to gain general background information. Profiles may also be used by the social networking site itself to relay messages to, for example, an email address of the user. As these profiles include such basic information as name, email address, postal address, phone number, images, video, audio, and may even include postings and/or messages created by the user, and any responses thereto, a social networking site profile includes information that may be applicable to contacts stored on a mobile device.